


Memento

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [271]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Memory Loss, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23202247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Blaine wakes up at 6:30 every morning.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Leoverse [271]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541





	Memento

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **what if** from the original 'verse. In the canon course of events that followed the beginning of Broken Heart Syndrome, this has never happened.  
> In this instance everything goes more or less like in canon, except for one thing that you will find out in this very story.
> 
> written for: COW-T#10  
> prompt: cyclic story + memory loss

Blaine wakes up at 6:30 every morning.

He's got one of those smart alarm clocks that relies on sounds only as a last resort and progressively changes the light in your room instead of blasting music into your ears. It's a gentler and more relaxed way to start your day. Any alternative would be too traumatic – both for him and Leo – and avoiding trauma has recently become his daily mission.

He turns off the alarm, plunging the room in its comfortable twilight again, only a single strip of sunlight coming in through the shutters. Leo rolls over and hugs his pillow, spreading his long body sideways to occupy the whole bed the moment Blaine leaves it, but he doesn't wake up. It's going to be at least three hours before that happens, but Blaine decides to set everything in place anyway, in case something out of his control – always the biggest problem – wakes him up before time.

Blaine checks that the sticky notes on the mirror are still there. There are more and more every day – as it was to be expected – color coded according to the areas of his life they belonged to: pink for their relationship, purple for the children, blue for work, green for health.

It was the most practical way at the beginning – the only effective one he could think of, to be honest – but it was just one sticky note back then, now it's fifty. It's starting to be too chaotic and certainly too overwhelming. Dr. Williams advised not to bombard Leo with too many information from the get going of the day. She says it might be counterproductive, as human brain can't process an entire lifetime in a matter of seconds, but Leo insists on adding everything, even the smallest detail, and Blaine can't find it in himself to stop him.

He'll have to find another, more organized way to deal with this, though. They're running out of mirror to stick the notes on.

Then, he rearranges the photos. There are only four here and Blaine always makes sure that they are in perfect sequence. He doesn't know if this is just wishful thinking or not, but it looks like Leo grasps the situation quicker and more easily when images tell him a story. He loves comic books, after all, so it makes some kind of sense, and as long as it doesn't hurt, Blaine is willing to try anything.

The first one is a photo they randomly took in the house, the result of Leo's obsession for selfies even in the most improbable moments. Blaine loves it for several reasons. One, it was taken a few weeks after the worst period of their lives. In the picture Leo is still too skinny for comfort, clothes are hanging from his body like old rags and he sits all curled up on the couch, his body still an alien thing that he doesn't want to acknowledge and that he doesn't want Blaine to touch. But he's smiling for the first time in weeks, and it's not a tired, polite smile, but a real one. Still a shadow of the cheeky ones he used to give, but also an echo of them, the promise that he will go back to smile like that – which he has, thank God.

Two, Leo is kissing his cheek. It's just a small, chaste kiss while he looks into the camera, but it says a lot of how he's feeling. It's too soon for him to accept any gesture from Blaine – he refuses them stubbornly and sometimes violently too because he doesn't trust him yet – but he likes to do little gestures towards Blaine. He wants to be in charge of any action going on between them, he wants the control Blaine didn't give him in the past. They're not happy yet, but they're going there.

Three, the scene is so _domestic_ that Blaine can't help but going 'aaw' every time he sees the photo. He's got a pair of sweatpants on and he's wearing his glasses. Leo is still in his Star Wars pajamas. It looks like a quiet night in, which in the present would just mean not going out, but back then – around six years ago – meant that Leo was sober and calm, willing to spend a few hours with him on the couch instead of screaming at him for ruining his life or, alternatively, being depressed edging on apathy.

Blaine thinks this photo is a good first step to start jogging Leo's memory.

Leo remembers their relationship up to a very specific point, so when he looks at that photo of them on the couch, he knows very well what he's looking at. He recognizes his own illness and recovery. It's a bit of memory he can anchor himself to as he discovers everything else.

The second photo comes from their wedding. It's them in their very expensive tuxedos, a moment after Leo has loosened his bow tie, which now hangs from around his neck. They lean against each other – something they did on their own accord and the photographer found cute – and they look very tired, but extremely happy. 

The third one is a photo of them with the kids. They're sitting down on a couch holding the twins, who are six months old, and Timmy is standing behind the couch – already way too tall to be in the front – right between them, holding both his siblings' little hands. It's an old style photo and they took it ironically, but it came out exceptionally good. The twins are unusually still and they're looking at the camera for once. Timmy has always been photogenic, but he looks particularly good here, with his messy blond hair and his sun-kissed skin. They look like the perfect family they definitely aren't, but it really works as a memento.

The fourth photo he keeps changing every few weeks. It's supposed to be showing the most recent version of all of them. They took this one three days ago at Olive's Garden. Blaine took them there to celebrate Logan's first ever A+ in math. They are all making a plus with their fingers while Logan, at the center, points at himself with a smug face.

That A+ was the result of Leo's tutoring Logan over the course of two weeks – not an easy task to achieve when you are to be told every single day what the problem is and what you taught your son so far to fix it. It was good practice for Logan to repeat everything every day, though. Every cloud has a silver lining, after all.

Blaine puts one photo next to the other. He looks at the mirror one more time and then he goes get ready for his morning jog. Once upon a time he used to run for a couple of hours, but after a terrifying morning when Leo woke up earlier and found himself in a house with three kids that were too small to properly explain to him what was going on, Blaine cut his jogging down to a simple run around the block. The rest of his workout morning routine now happens in the in-house gym he had installed in the spare room on the first floor.

He's in the kitchen two hours later – after a much required shower and the first coffee of the day – when he hears Leo's hesitant steps as he comes downstairs. Blaine waits patiently for him a the kitchen's table, reading the latest news on his tablet and preparing himself for the day ahead, which starts inevitably with Leo's first question in the morning.

“Blaine, what is this?”

Blaine looks up from the screen and smiles at him. “Good morning, kid,” he says, despite the fact that his husband stopped being a kid a good twenty years ago. It's a privilege of being so much older than him.

“Yeah, good morning. It was on the mirror,” Leo goes on, frowning at the pink sticky note in his hand. “There were tons of them.”

“What does it say?” Blaine stands up to give him a kiss.

“That we're married,” Leo says confused. “And there was this too. I don't remember ever taking it.”

Leo shows him their wedding photo. Some days he takes it with him, some days he doesn't. The only thing that never changes is that he has no memory of it. “Sit down, love.” Blaine takes the photo and the sticky note from his hands and puts them aside. “What is the last thing you remember?”

Leo frowns again. He's not simply disoriented, he's aware that something is off – even if he doesn't know exactly what – and that unsettles him. Dr. Williams says that that is a good thing. It means that he's not totally unaware that time has passed. At least a part of his brain knows, at an unconscious level, that something is missing and it's possible that it's working to retrieve it. Sometimes it happens – that is why it's so important to constantly trying to jog his memory – and that's the feeble hope everyone is hanging on to.

“We ordered pizza last night,” Leo says after a while. “We came back very late from the Hamptons. The flight was, uh—delayed for the storm in Columbus. We got here around, like, I think eleven or something. I didn't feel like cooking but we were starving, so you agreed on pizza.”

This is the latest memory Leo has since the accident, and every morning he tells Blaine this same story down to the smallest details. His brain overcompensates by pulling up all the information it has on the one thing Leo's remembers against those he doesn't. 

“Right, we went to the Hamptons for a week,” Blaine confirms with a nod. “But that was sixteen years ago, love.”

“Please, it's too early in the morning to joke around,” he says, an uncertain, nervous chuckle escaping his lips. He pushes the wedding photo towards him over the kitchen counter. “When did we take this photo? What's with all the sticky notes on the mirror?”

It's not always easy to tell Leo what happened. Blaine has a few speeches planned that he uses according to the mood Leo's in when he wakes up, but breaking the news to him can only be done bluntly. “Three years ago there was an accident and you lost your short term memory.”

“What?”

“You were driving down Jameson Avenue, and level with Springview Manor another SUV ran the light and crashed into your car. You hit your head once on the wheel before the airbag could open up and another time on the headrest during the backlash. You were in coma for a week, and when you woke up, the last thing you remembered was that trip to the Hamptons, the rest was—gone. And then we realized your short term memory was affected too. You have a 24 hours autonomy and then your brain resets itself.”

“That can't be true,” Leo shakes his head. Blaine can see the confusion on his face, the hesitation, because somehow, deep down, Blaine's words ring true and it's easier to believe them than it is to believe the contrary. It's that sliver of hope all of them are hanging to, Leo's brain detecting that something is missing and that it _might_ be the information it's received now. “You're making fun of me.”

“I would never do that, love,” Blaine says calmly. He grabs the photo album that he now keeps in the kitchen, so that he can use it as a visual aid during these morning explanations, and pushes it towards his husband. “Please, take a look at this. It's not complete, but there's a lot of all that you're missing right now.”

Blaine watches as Leo opens the photo album with shaking hands. The thing that always hurts the most is how Leo's eyes glide over the photos and there's no spark of recognition in them. It's like he's looking at photos of strangers. “We married the year after that trip to the Hamptons. You didn't want at first. I think I worn you out. We had a nice celebration and a very big reception in a farm in Centerburg. I insisted on taking care of everything and you declared you weren't going to lift a finger, so that worked pretty well,” Blaine smiles at him and he's pleased to receive a little chuckle from Leo. “Everybody was there, even Cody.”

Leo looks up at him, proper shock on his face, a second before turning a page of the photo album and finding out by himself. Blaine always tries to be the one telling him. It seems the best thing to do considering that, from Leo's current point of view, he and Cody haven't spoken to each other in years, and aside from the obvious surprise of knowing there was a wedding and Cody accepted to be there, Cody's got a lot more baggage now that Leo is not aware of. “He is married now,” Blaine says slowly. He knows he can't avoid any blow is about to give, but he can at least ease them. “His husband, Vince, is one of our best friends. They have a son, Alex, who left quite an impression con Timmy.”

Leo doesn't say anything. The expression on his face is slowly fading into blankness. Sometimes he gets angry at Blaine, sometimes he cries, sometimes, like now, he retreats into himself. Blaine can almost see the wall of bricks he's putting between himself and what he knows it's going to hurt him badly.

“The twins came six years ago,” Blaine goes on, trying to reel him back in. The worse thing that can happen is Leo deciding to cut himself from reality, and he can't have that. “It took us forever to choose a surrogate mother because you wanted the best of the best. No one was good enough for you. Then we met Michelle and you literally fell in love with her. She was French and she was looking for a way to pay back her student loans. A lovely girl, very outgoing, with the perfect color scheme.

“The twins were a bit of a struggle at first. We expected one kid and we ended up with two. It was mayhem for the first two months of their lives. I had to take a break from my job again, but we managed. They are going to turn seven next month and they are very excited about it. You promised them—”

Leo suddenly stands up, cringing. “Stop!” He swallows. “Please, stop. I can't listen to you right now.”

“Baby, it's alright,” Blaine stands up too and tries to touch him, but Leo backs off. “It's a lot to take in, I know. Just take all the time you need.”

“Apparently I only have 24 hours before I forget everything again,” Leo tenses, the notion finally sinking in and filling his eyes with tears. “I need a moment.”

He grabs the photo album and leaves the room.

It's not the first time this happens – at this point, Blaine thinks he saw Leo's every possible reaction – but it's always extremely painful to see his husband suffer like that when he can only wait for him to come back to him, or witness as Leo lives the day in despair, knowing that in twenty-four hours he'll be the only one remembering what happened this time and all the times before this one.

*

It's two hours later when Leo shows up again at the kitchen door, the photo album clutched to his chest. The sight has become extremely familiar. “What are they called?” Leo asks, softly.

Blaine puts away his tablet. He didn't want to risk bothering his husband who was reconnecting with the last sixteen years of his life in the living room by leaving the kitchen, so he stayed put. “Who, love?”

“The twins. I don't know the name of my children,” Leo says, his voice cracking a little.

Blaine reaches out to him and he's relieved when Leo holds his hand and sits down. “Their names are Harper and Logan,” he says to him. “You chose them.”

Leo gives him a little smile. “I called our daughter like my worst enemy.”

“Yeah,” Blaine chuckles. “And they have a lot of things in common. Harper likes music too, she's been taking piano lessons.”

“I'd love to hear her play.”

“Oh, you will. She never says no to demonstrations. And Logan will want to show you all his drawings. That is what he usually does when you wake up.”

Leo lets out a heavy-charged sigh. “Blaine, how do you deal with this? With me in this condition?”

“I would deal with you in any condition.”

“But this is—I feel like I'm in a parallel universe. My mind remembers one thing and ever single thing around me tells a completely different story. How do we even live like this?”

“It's not easy, love, but we've been through worse,” Blaine smiles at him.

Blaine keeps stubbornly saying this, even if it doesn't look like that. They have hurt each other badly to the point of almost destroying each other's lives, but they could remember everything. They could savor the good memories, learn from the bad ones. Now they're both stuck in a loop only one of them is aware of. Still, he wants to believe this is just another bump in the road, nothing worse than when they broke up.

“Do we even get together anymore?” He asks softly.

“It's not always like today,” Blaine squeezes his hand. “Some days it's easier and the only thing you want is being with me. We still have our moments.”

“But I can't remember them.”

“Your mind does. Dr. Williams says your memories could be there somewhere and you just can't access them,” Blaine strokes his face tenderly. “It's only been three years, we have still a lot to try, love. Everything's going to be alright.”

“What can _I_ do?”

“Be patient, we're going to get through this.”

“Maybe there are exercises I could do,” Leo murmurs, and Blaine can see the little gears in his head moving faster and faster. “They say what you learn right before going to bed stick with you longer because sleep helps you fix the memories in your head. If tonight I repeat to myself over and over what happened, then maybe—“

“Sure, that sounds like a good idea,” Blaine smiles at him.

He doesn't tell him they already tried that – that they try almost every night – that they have had this same conversation a hundred times already, with other words, in other settings, for other reasons, but with the same results. There's no point in taking away his hope.

*

Blaine wakes up at 6:30 every morning.

He turns off his alarm clock and checks that all the sticky notes on the mirror are still there. Leo took them all down last night, read them all aloud twice and then three times. He tried to memorize them to commit them to memory once and for all. They're all in a different order, but Blaine leaves them like that. You never know, it might help, maybe that's the order they should be, the one Leo gave them. He puts the wedding photo back on the chest of drawers with the others, and then rearranges them all.

He gets ready for his little morning jog, he comes back, has a shower.

He's in the kitchen at 8:30 – after a much required shower and the first coffee of the day – when he hears Leo's hesitant steps as he comes downstairs. Blaine waits patiently for Leo's first question in the morning.

“Blaine, what is this?”


End file.
